Heart Tracks - Silent God

"How long O Lord, must I call for help? But you do not listen!" Habakkuk 1:2...."Christians have a hard time believing in a Christianity that allows for God to sometimes come across as a hands-off God." Larry Crabb

The prophet Habakkuk had a deep spiritual struggle. The God he believed in, trusted in, seemed totally absent from the affairs of His chosen people Israel. As the circumstances around him and the nation continued to worsen, his crying out to his God increased in urgency. The response he got was silence. God wasn't speaking, wasn't answering. This conflicted with all he believed. How could his God be like this? Why would He be like this?

Let me say that I believe completely in a good and loving God who is intimately involved with His people. The Bible says He is near, and not far off, and He is. Yet sometimes, even oftentimes, it may not seem so at all. As Crabb says above, this is not a situation that we can easily accept. Especially when we have heard sermon after sermon, teaching after teaching that tells us He has a "wonderful plan for our lives," and that those plans are for good and not evil, that they're meant to give us "a future and a hope." In fact, I have seen that particular Scripture be cited as many a believer's favorite, often claimed as a life promise. How does one who claims that promise relate to a silent, hands-off God? We may know that He behaved so with many in the Bible, but He wouldn't do so with us. We believe He is committed to our well-being, and He is. The problem is, we think we get to define what well being is, and always, we define it as what pleases our flesh. What makes things better and more comfortable in our here and now. His Word says He's an "ever present help in trouble." He is, but in ways beyond our understanding, and that's usually where we stumble. If we can't understand, then we react in a number of negative ways; anger, depression, even rejection. All the while, God is doing something greater, deeper, than we could think.

In response to Habakkuk's question, God answered, "Look at the nations and be amazed. Watch and be astounded at what I will do! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn't believe even if someone told you about it." That something was a work of grace much deeper in the life of the nation and of Habakkuk himself than he could possibly grasp in that moment. It is His way. It is how He seeks to mature us, deepen us. In the devotional "Steams In The Desert," a woman dreamed of talking with Jesus. In the dream, she saw three women kneeling in prayer. The first He knelt with, held closely, and spent much time with. The second He did much the same, but for a lesser time. The last He seemed to pass by with almost no touch. She thought He must be greatly displeased with the last, and very pleased with the other two. His response was that wasn't so at all. The first was weak in her faith and needed His intimate attention to go on. The second was stronger, but still needed His assurance. The last had broken through into a depth of trust in Him that didn't need such constant assurance. She knew His goodness and trusted that He would work it into her life. She depended not on the sense of His nearness, but in her trust of His promise of it. Can we?

There will be times when He is silent, when He seems to have taken His hands completely away from our lives, needs, and situations. We will have questions that we will have no answers to. He will have one for us; will we trust Him in the silence? Will we trust Him in our lack of understanding? Will we trust Him in the dark? Will we? Will you? In His timing, God broke His silence with Habakkuk. So will He do with us. Can we be still and know that He's God, or, does our demand for immediate gratification rule the day? Do we grow in our faith during the silence, or withdraw from Him as we accuse Him of not caring? Will we still love and trust a silent God?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Fear Or Faith?

"As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more." Psalm 71:14....."God will save. It's His nature." Chris Tiegreen

Philippians 4:6 says that God has not given us a spirit of fear, yet that is exactly what many of His people are living in right now. Fear of the future. Fear of what may happen. Fear of the "what if?" The Father has not given us a spirit of feat, but satan, the father of lies is certainly happy to place such upon us.....if we'll allow it.

We are surrounded by voices that seek to speak fear into our lives. Politicians and the media specialize in this. We are constantly made aware of the latest threat to our safety and well being. I clearly remember as a child the constant warnings of a possible nuclear attack from Russia, and all the grade school exercises we had in order to prepare for such. Then there was all the racial and political unrest of the 60's, the AIDS epidemic of the 80's, and of course, all the Y2K fears of 2000. Then it became the growing social, political, and economic instability that we've witnessed throughout the 2000's. Now it is threat of the coranavirus. Reasons to fear are everywhere. The reason not to fear is found in only One; Jesus Christ.

There is an element of truth in every one of these threats. There always is. There is also that element of truth in those things that the enemy assaults your and my mind with, oftentimes on a moment by moment basis. Into that truth, he mixes his lies. It's not that there isn't some degree of truth in the things to be feared. It's that he seeks to take our eyes and heart away from the One who is Truth itself. The One who comes to us in every place of danger and simply speaks, "Fear not. I am with you." Fear cannot exist where Christ is. The spirit of fear cannot control when we are kept in the power of His Holy Spirit.

Wherever your fears may be found, whether they're in such as this virus, or simply in whether your job will be there next month. Or whether you can pay your mortgage or rent, or keep your children safe and away from the endless temptations surrounding them. In all of them, He is there. In all of them, He speaks, "Fear not. I am with you." As Tiegreen says, it's His nature to save. We are not at the mercy of our fears. As Tiegreen says, "A firm belief in both His goodness and His sovereignty over our every circumstance yields an incredibly relaxing trust."

We can live in our fears, or we can live in our faith. The first discounts Christ. The latter stands upon Him. Where are you and I living right now?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Mansions

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment." "If you could have heaven and all you could ever want, and Jesus wasn't there, could you be happy?....How many of us are truly in love with Jesus?" Francis Chan

John Burton has said that "rich, young rulers are filling our pews," and "we want our 'mansions' to all be here." Those statements pierce. The first of course refers to the young man who came to Jesus asking what he must do to inherit the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus spoke of several behavior oriented things, to which the young man replied that he'd done them all. Jesus then pressed him deeper than the man had ever expected. He told him to sell everything he had, and to come and follow Him. This broke the young man's heart, and he walked away from the One he believed he wanted. He loved his riches more than he loved Jesus. How like him might we be? Are we among the "rich young rulers" that Burton speaks of? How tightly do we grasp those things we believe we need in order to have that abundant life Christ promised? How much of our joy and happiness is connected to what we have, or long to have th right now? How many of us are living in the mindset that we could be joyful and content "if only" we had this situation, house, job, relationship, ministry....mansion? How many of us are living in a "Jesus and..." mentality? We want Jesus and all of the blessings He can give us. Wanting Him alone is not a heart attitude we're really desiring to live in. We want Him to build our mansions in the here and now. We want to embrace Him with one arm while hugging all of our "stuff" to ourselves with the other.

Chan's question of being happy in heaven if we had all of its promise but without the presence of Christ, is chilling. Someone told me in response to this question that heaven wouldn't be heaven without Him, and they were correct. Yet many of those who profess faith in Him are living with little if any of His Presence and yet seem quite happy and content with that. Why would they feel any differently if He were not present throughout eternity?

So we return to Chan's final question: How many of us are truly in love with Jesus? Here in the west, there are churches with overflow crowds being led by "preachers" who promise them a life of abundance, happiness, security, and unending blessings. How many would be there if the message were simply "Deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Me?" That is what Christ invites us to, and He calls us to love Him with all of our being as we do so. Rich young rulers, or rulers of any age group will never do that. They will attend services, give money, but they will never give Him all of themselves. They cannot carry His cross because they can't leave off looking for their mansions. They cannot share in His sufferings because suffering for Him has no place in their faith. To what degree are you and I among them? How much do we truly love Jesus?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Inevitable?

"Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." Romans 6:11...."If we see ourselves as sinners trying to be better Christians, that is how we'll live. If we see ourselves as sinners who were buried with Christ and raised to new life, that too is how we'll live." Chris Tiegreen

It is a great tragedy in the church that so many seem to have resigned themselves to a pattern of failure, to a pattern of sinful living. They seem to see this as inevitable, and point to Paul's writing in Romans 7, where he tells of his ongoing struggle with sinful behavior. He wants to do well, but his sinful nature prevents it. Somehow, those who hold to this never seem to read beyond the 23rd verse, because beginning with verse 24, he writes, "Oh, what a miserable person I am. Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? Thank God, the answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord." Then he moves into chapter 8, which is vivid portrait of what it is to live in the Spirit of God.....and to break free of all those patterns of sinful behavior. It is not a matter that we cannot sin, but that we don't have to. His Word says that, "It's for freedom that He set us free." Not just by our position in Him, but by our experience in Him as well. We are not sinners trying to be better followers of Jesus. We are sinners saved by grace, transformed by grace, and having the power of His resurrected, eternal life.....right now! Christ's own words resonate with this truth, as do Paul's, John's, Peter's, and countless others who came after them. James S. Stewart said, "You do not need to wait...to begin living eternally." So why do we wait?

I have long believed that we keep asking for what He has already given. We ask for a victory that He's already won and given us. We ask for an abundant life that He has already poured out for us. We ask for a wholeness that He has already given full provision for. We're like the Israelites who stood at the border of the promised land, and who heard the Father ask, "How long will you put off entering into the land that I have (already) given you?" The life we keep asking for has already been given us in Jesus Christ. Why do we keep "putting off" our entering into it? Why do we believe that the life depicted in Romans 7 is the best He can offer us? Why do we believe that the life in Romans 8 is beyond us? Why do we keep seeing ourselves as we are without Him, rather than who we are in Him? In Romans 7, Paul struggles to be a follower of the King. In 8, he is empowered by His resurrected life to be one. Which are we?

There will be struggles of growth in grace this side of eternity, but they are not meant to be patterns of defeat, but stepping stones of victory. Victory that takes us ever deeper into the spiritual "land" that He has given us in Christ. The Israelites fought battles to secure that promised land, but victory in those battles was already theirs. Sin, defeat and failure are not inevitable, but victory is as we continue to receive His Life and Spirit abundantly as He gives them abundantly. He said, "Freely I have given, freely receive." Stop standing at the border. Enter in.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - He Lives

"A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also." John 14:19

Some years back I wrote this prayer in my journal; "In the monotony of life and ministry, help me to know that my unchanging, but ever surprising God, lives."

Life, and especially ministry, can enter into long stretches of monotony, sameness. Sometimes for very long stretches. Nothing seems to be happening. Like the Israelites, we continue to circle around a mountain over and over again. We see the same things, experience the same things, and have been at it so long that the path we walk has become a rut. A very deep rut. Where is God? Why are we here? Will there ever come a time we're not here? We're weary of the spirit draining sameness of it all. We can feel ready to just stop walking, to sit down, and stay down. Yet if we'll listen, hear Him, the Holy Spirit will whisper into our heart, "Keep on walking. I have so much more for you than this."

It's so tempting in these places to want to break out, forge a new direction. We've had enough of the drudgery, the sameness, the thought that nothing ever changes, or ever will change. Yet, I've found that these urges seldom come from the Spirit of the Lord. Whenever that feeling of "I've got to do something," comes, we can be sure it is not coming from Him. If He's leading us out of a path that we're in, there will be a calmness, an assurance, and a restful waiting for Him to open the door unto a new direction. If those are not present, than we're acting on a flesh impulse, and the result will always be at best, something much less than His desire for us, and at worst, a total disaster. The landscape of faith is littered with those who sought to forge their own way and were flung to the ground in defeat. We see this in the abandonment of marriages, ministries, relationships, professions, life. We want to pursue change from our sameness. He desires that we pursue Him in the midst of it. And trust Him that He knows the way we take, even when that way seems to be leading us to nowhere. We see it as just another day in the desert. He sees it as an opportunity to go deeper into Himself.

In Exodus, God finally spoke to the people through Moses, saying to them, "You've circles this mountain long enough. Turn north." That direction contained challenges, dangers, threats, and yes, more times of sameness and monotony. We live in a fallen world, but if we will look to Him, look for Him, we will discover that though He is unchanging, He is also ever surprising. He will invade our times of circling the mountain, and reveal aspects of Himself we've never known before. He calls us to "follow hard" after Him, which translates into following Him while clinging so tightly to Him, that an onlooker would not be able to distinguish any space between us.

Are you circling your own mountain today? In your marriage, your job, your ministry, your life? Keep on walking. Keep on trusting. Keep on looking and listening for Him. Your unchanging, ever surprising God lives. And He lives for you, as you go ever deeper into life in Him.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Antichrist Spirit

"Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour." I John 2:18...."Antichrist is something that assumes the place of Christ. They can seem so much alike." T. Austin-Sparks

Ever since I came to Christ in 1979, there have been varying degrees of conversation about the Antichrist; when he will appear, where will he have come from? Both I John and Revelation speak of him, and everything points to him being a person filled with the spirit of the devil and being everything Christ is not, and against everything Christ is. However, what most miss is that while this actual personage and spirit may be yet to come, the antichrist spirit has already come, has been in the world since the fall, and has been coming against the people of God forever. Though that spirit is total evil, it doesn't often look that way. It can in fact deceive us into thinking that the lure it puts before us is from Christ Himself. If we lack spiritual discernment, we'll be deceived every time.

Something that needs to happen for the believer is be able to discern where every desire, leading, and behavior has its root. In short, what spirit do they feed? Does it come from Him, or that which is not Him at all? The Pharisees who first persecuted and then killed Jesus thought they did the work of God. The apostle Paul, once a Pharisee himself, persecuted and participated in the murder of those who followed Christ. He too thought he was doing the work of God. His zeal to work for the Father had taken the place of a desire to know Him. Jesus often said to the ones who opposed Him, "If you knew My Father, you would know Me." In Scripture, God says, "My people perish for lack of knowledge." Knowledge of Him. That Scripture remains powerfully true today.

Perhaps you're reading this and thinking, "Well, I'm not persecuting Him, or doing anything like that," but is that really so? Sparks says that an antichrist is anything that takes the place of Christ in our hearts and life. What things, people, professions, ambitions, goals....ministries may have taken His place in ours? There may be much good in every one of them, but if the laying hold of any of them is at the center of our hearts, they have taken His place, and they are an antichrist to us. I have had antichrists in my life; attitudes, relationships with others, behaviors, and yes, even the ministry He called me to. In all of them, like Paul, I thought I was following His desire for me. I was deceived. It took examining where the center of those things was rooted to see that they were not rooted in Him. What things in your life aren't either? Who and what are the antichrists for you?

Antichrist is here. Where is his spirit here for each of us? He can indeed seem very much like Christ. Only His Holy Spirit discernment can expose the difference. Do you and I have such discernment?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Why Not?

"Suddenly there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm in the skies above them, and it filled the house where they were meeting......."When they (those living in Jerusalem) heard this sound, they came running to see what it was all about." Acts 2:2 and 6

At our fellowship, a group of us gather each Sunday morning to pray for His Spirit and anointing to be upon our worship that day. This past week, I was impressed to pray, as concerns a great move of His Holy Spirit, "Father, why not here? Why not us? Why not now?" I think that's not so much a question for the Father as it is for us. I've a friend who often says that in our prayers or conversations, we say that "God wants to do this or that," usually as pertains to a move of His Spirit. His view was that we think He wants to do something, but can't, due to a wide range of reasons. His thought was that He was already doing the very thing we were asking for, but that our hearts and spirits were not in any position to see or receive it. Scripture points to the reality that what He wills is, and there can be no doubt that He wills an awakening in His church and the culture surrounding it. I know He's sovereign and I know there is the reality of His timing, but His Holy Spirit is always moving, always flowing, always seeking. With this reality, when we pray for such things as an awakening of His church, how can we not ask, "Why not here? Why not us? Why not now?" Where's the glitch? As always, the blockage lies in us.

We may pray for His Spirit to move. We may pray for the awakening of His church. We may pray for a powerful move of His Spirit, but the pointed question is, how desperately do we really desire that? We may say we yearn to walk in the power and witness of the 1st century church, but as Francis Chan asks, how many of us are willing to sacrifice, offer up to Him, everything that is in us in order to receive and walk in that power?

A true move of His Spirit turns the world upside down. It will surely turn our world upside down, and the life of our churches as well. All of our focus will be on Him, what He is showing and doing. Where He is moving. The reality of His Word, where He tells us that "we are not our own," becomes our daily reality. We can no longer compartmentalize Him, giving Him some part of our Sunday, and keeping the rest of our days for ourselves. I think so many of us pray for a great movement that changes everything around us, especially the circumstances and people we don't like, while leaving us the way we are. So the Lord, seeing all this, says in response to all of our "why not's?", "That's why not."

Yet what would happen if, in desperation, we, His church really did begin to cry out for His Spirit to be unleashed? What if we so wanted to see Him awaken His church, especially our corner of it, crying out, "Lord, why not us? Why not here? Why not now?" And to really bring it home, adding, "Why not me?"

I said before that He is always moving, but it is a direction dictated by Him, not us. When we come before Him with hearts desperately hungry and thirsty for Him, we place ourselves directly in the path in which He is moving. And His moving turns into a mighty move upon us, me, here, and right now? And all because the reasons in our hearts for all the "why not's" have been dealt with, and He simply moves...with power, upon us... where we are... now.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Songs

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." John 1:14

I heard a secular song the other day that had the lyric, "What if God was one of us?" It was not a song of hope, but one of pessimism and doubt....and ignorance. Ignorance because God, in Jesus Christ is among us. He came in the flesh in the birth and life of Jesus Christ, He continues to be among us today as He lives in and through the lives of those who have believed upon Him and received Him as Lord and Savior. The poor woman who wrote and sang this song has no idea, is blind to the truth that He is among us, right now, and mightily. From her heart comes a desire to know such a God, but an inability to believe that this desire is fully met in Jesus Christ. Could anything be more tragic?

Her song reminds me of another from a Jesus movement era group called Dogwood. It's a song about a woman who'd entered into a lifestyle she believed would bring her happiness and freedom, but instead brought her ruin and despair. A lyric in the song speaks to her saying, "You have heard the song of the hater, and the darkness is filled with those he has fooled." The darkness is still filled with them, and not only those in despair and hopelessness, but with those who feel they have it all, but do not have Him. The song of the hater has been sung since Adam and Eve, and it continues to deceive and enslave.

This brings me to another song by Dogwood. In it, the singer speaks of ministering to a woman mired in the grief of loss, Mrs. Lee. The singer ministers to her, singiing, "Journey music, that's what the Lord has given me. I'll sing my journey music until there are no more Mrs. Lee's." We, who are His, have been given "songs", journey music, and our songs are meant to overcome the song of the hater. We're to "sing" these songs through our lives; in the words we speak, the actions we take, the love we give. We're to sing the "new song" He places in our heart to all those that fill the darkness and are everywhere around us. "Mrs. Lee's" in one form or another are everywhere. The Father in Christ has given us our own kind of journey music, and it needs to be heard by those He's placed us before and beside.

This brings me to the story of the last "singer" in this writing. Darrel Mansfield was and is a wonderful musician and part of the Jesus movement of the 60's and 70's. He tells of how, trapped in depression, hopelessness, and sorrow, he went to the altar of the church he attended and slit his wrists, so deeply that he could see the bones. Someone called the authorities, and when they got there, they asked, "Son, what are you on?" Mansfield, who didn't use drugs replied, "I'm on life." He meant that the life he was living was destroying him. He also said that as he slit his wrists he heard the Lord ask, "Do you want to live?" To his shock, he answered that he did. He recovered, and gave His heart and life to Christ. In an interview about that time he said, "I was on life without the Giver of Life. I went to church, but I'd never been to Calvary (the cross). The Author of all journey music had brought His song to Mansfield and freed him from the captivity of the song of the hater.

What if God was one of us? For those who believe, He is far more than that. He is with us, within us, one with us. And He gives us a song, journey music. A song so powerful that all the songs of the hater are drowned out by His Life Song. I want to spend my days singing His journey music, being His song. How about you?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Stay Soft

"Then the Lord gave me this message: 'O Israel, can I not do for you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand.' " Jeremiah 18:5-6

I heard the evangelist James Robison once say, "I know You're shaping me Lord, but could you please squeeze a little more softly? I ask Him to not squeeze hard, and He responds by telling me to stay soft." Staying soft before Him. Why is that so hard for us? Why are we prone to being more hard of heart than we are tenderhearted before Him? Why is it so hard to recognize how hardhearted we've become? The answer really comes down to our intimacy, or lack of it, with Him. With His Presence. With His heart.

I have lost count of the number of times I've heard people speak about how hard it is for them to keep regular times of prayer and meditating upon His Word. Of having times of real relational intimacy with Him. They cite busyness, distractions, obligations, and a myriad of other "things" to the mix. Almost never stated, but very present is that so often at root, we just don't want to. We cannot have a heart to heart intimacy with a God that we have no real heart to heart relationship with. We cannot stay soft before Him when we are rarely ever before Him. So we just get harder. No, we don't cease going to church, or our Bible studies, or other forms of fellowship. We may be around many of His people, but we're rarely around Him. The result is that we become so distant from Him that our hearts have become hardened, dare we say deadened, so that a few worship songs followed by a sermon barely make a dent. And it only gets worse for us as the pattern continues. The pattern then yields a walk that Larry Crabb said leads to being "more prone to maneuvering our way through life than abandoning ourselves to Him." We know much about Him, but we don't know Him.

The journey of hardheartedness is a long one. Examine the life of Lot. He chose to settle near Sodom, a totally wicked city. He started out near to it, in the end, he lived in its very center. He had walked with Abraham, who walked with God. He certainly knew much of Abraham's God, but that didn't save him from the pull on his heart from the spirit that controlled Sodom. His uncle Abraham stayed close to His God while Lot chose to stay close to that city. What do you and I choose to stay close to each day? Who and what do we choose to be intimate with?

Spiritual hardheartedness sets in the moment we take our eyes off of Christ. As soon as we do, whatever it is we focus on begins to seduce us, even if they are good things. We become more attuned to them, and ever less attuned to Him. And the response from the Father, the Potter, is to seek to shape us anew. When we remain soft before Him, this will be a joyous experience as we grow more and more in His image. Yet the hardness of our hearts will require Him to handle us with pressure that our flesh will hate. He will discipline us through circumstances, people, and many other ways to break through the hardness and bring us back to Him....softened. He squeezes hard, and we cry out that He be less so. He whispers to us, His children, "Stay soft." Have we? Are we?

Stay soft. Stay in His Presence. Keep your eyes fixed upon Jesus. Let Him shape you, us, day by day, moment by moment. He desires a masterpiece, and the only thing that can hinder the shaping is the absence of every hard piece of clay in His hands. There will be none so long as we stay in His hands, being shaped by His heart, as His heart shapes ours.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Sacred Life

"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Exodus 3:5....Live with a sense of sacredness."....Chris Tiegreen

I'm convicted by this Scripture and by Tiegreen's words. Are you? In His Word, its stated that we're not to "treat what is holy as if it were profane." Volumes could be written by how easily we do that in the church today. Holy life, holy living, are not popular subjects in the modern church of the west. We like to emphasize how loving, forgiving, giving, compassionate, merciful, and welcoming God is. Not a lot is said about His holiness, and though He is all of the above and infinitely more, He is holy. So holy that if He were to show Himself fully to our flesh, we would be destroyed. Even when we do acknowledge His holiness to some degree, we don't say much about His command to "be holy as I am holy," which are His words and not mine, or any other preacher or person. Revelation tells us that His throne is surrounded by myriads of angels who proclaim constantly, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty."

In Exodus 3, when the Father appeared to Moses in the burning bush, He told him that the ground he stood upon was holy ground. It was holy ground made so by the very presence of God. Shouldn't it be for we who believe that He is with us wherever we are, that the ground we stand upon in His presence is holy ground as well? Wherever we are, whatever we're doing, we do so upon "holy ground." I have written down in my prayer journal that I would treat every place I might be in the course of a day as holy ground. This means not just in what I do or say, but in my thought life, my attitudes, and my desires. Doing so is impossible in my own strength. I cannot come close to living out that prayer in any way but by living each moment and day with Him in front of me and before all else. I think that this is what it is to live a sacred life. I think living such a life is day by day journey where we learn, by His grace, how to do just that. It requires an act of our will to consciously live with Him before us, yet empowered by His grace to do so. We may stumble at times to do so, but the stumbling is the result of our letting other things, people, desires and thoughts come before us instead of Him. What we fix our eyes upon becomes what we fix our hearts upon as well.
Yet here's the joy; His presence through His Holy Spirit pursues us, places Himself and His holiness before us, and calls us once again to live upon His holy ground. To live that sacred life. To not treat as profane, that which is holy.

The lure of the profane is everywhere. It places that which is not worthy before us and steals our eyes and hearts from the only One who is worthy. And we end up living profane lives, worshiping profane things, when it is the sacred life that we were created for. Profane life or sacred; which are we living? Are we living with Him before us in all things, or have other things taken His place? Isaiah spoke of the "Highway of holiness, where the unclean could not walk." I want to walk that highway, made clean not by keeping rules and regulations, or by my own efforts at being holy, but by the work of His Holy Spirit, and the empowering of His Life upon mine. Wherever we stand today, He makes that ground holy. May our lives reflect that reality.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks 0 Eyewitnesses

"We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty." 2 Peter 1:16

I believe the desperate need of a dead world is to have a generation of "eyewitnesses" of His resurrection life. Not those who can tell stories from the Bible, or quote Scripture, or who've never missed a Sunday worship service. What is needed are those, who like the disciples "have seen, touched, and handled the risen Christ." I'm being too "mystical" here? I don't think so. I remember hearing some singers and musicians of the Jesus Movement say that in their songs, they didn't have any deep theology or teaching. They said that the common thread to all of them was the message, "Once we were blind, but now we see." They said that message opened up countless doors for sharing the reality of Jesus Christ. They were just young people who'd had a transformational encounter with Him, and all things were new. They'd moved from darkness to light and from death to life. They were eyewitnesses as well as partakers of the heart changing work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus and His Words were not verses held in a leather bound book. They were living words, and those words now lived in and through them. The world they were living in, the late 1960's, was desperate for such eyewitnesses. They were used of the Father to confront that desperation. The culture of today is even more desperate. Can you and I be His witnesses to it?

When Mary saw the risen Christ in the Garden, she ran to the disciples with the simple words, "I have seen the Lord." There were likely a number of different responses to her words, from doubt, to unbelief. What they couldn't deny was the fervor with which she spoke. She'd certainly seem someone, and their hearts were quickened to see them as well. Who and what have we seen? Do we know a Jesus who is bigger, greater, than our words can describe? Have we seen and experienced the One who is Savior, Healer, Source, Strength, Peace, Joy, Life? Do we know Him as such because we've "seen" and experienced Him as all of them? Unbelievers, including some in my family, have scoffed when I tell them that I know beyond doubt that He is real. Where's my proof? They can't understand or grasp that my "proof" lies not in anything human reason can lay hold of, but in the work He has done in my heart, my mind, and my soul. I have encountered Jesus in every one of the names I list above. All of them and more. That's how I know that He's real. That's what makes me an eyewitness. That's why I can say with those singers, "Once I was blind, but now I see." Can you say it too?

Again, a world trapped in darkness needs a generation of eyewitnesses like Mary, who run to it with the simple words, "I have seen the Lord." They may laugh, scoff, sneer, reject. They may also be moved to want to see what we have. And if they have that desire, then they too will become His eyewitnesses. It all begins with being just that...an eyewitness. Are you one?

Blessings,
Pastor O